Few Americans know about our nation’s system of immigrant detention centers. Each year, the U.S. government locks up roughly 440,000 immigrants in over 200 immigrant prisons. Companies like the CCA and Geo Group, got started in the 1980s, and have since made over $12 billion in profits, largely from immigrant detention.

The detention of migrants has become a multi-billion dollar industry in which immigrants are sold to the highest bidder and traded like mere products. The Corrections Corporation of America, The Geo Group, and the Management and Training Corporation run over 200 facilities all over the nation. These facilities offer over 150,000 bed spaces and rake in a total profit of close to five billion dollars per year. The fact that these detention centers get paid for the number of people that are in the center per night offers, therefore, no incentive to speed up the legal processes and let the detainees leave the facility.

As Alan Grayson said (Email message, 8/22/10): “As far as the Republican Party is concerned, they wouldn’t mind if Timothy McVeigh wins the Republican primary [in his Florida Congressional district] on Tuesday. (And by the way, if McVeigh ran, he would win.) The National Republican Party doesn’t care who wins on Tuesday. They just want to get rid of me. Whoever wins the Republican primary, you can be sure that he fits the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, hateful, fearful mold that is the National Republican Party of 2010. And that mold gets moldier every day.”

Do you think that Mr. Grayson went too far with the Timothy McVeigh comment? In a speech last month, talking to the faithful, Sean Hannity referred to them as “Timothy McVeigh wannabees” — to great applause.

As outlined in Part 1 of this series, “The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom,” there are two major geopolitical realities in the world today, both largely brought about as a result of the “Technological Revolution” in which technology and electronics have come to define and shape our society.

The Department of Homeland Security said Friday it plans to enter into new agreements with sixty-seven state and local law enforcement agencies. These agreements expand the existing 287g program, which delegates some federal immigration enforcement authority to certain state and local agencies. The 287g program has come under intense criticism in recent months, with over 500 organizations, including the ACLU and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, calling on the government to end the program. Many of the agencies involved have been accused of racial profiling, and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix, Arizona is being investigated by the Justice Department. We host a debate between the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Center for Immigration Studies. [includes rush transcript]

“The flu season is upon us. Which type will we worry about this year, and what kind of shots will we be told to take? Remember the swine flu scare of 1976? That was the year the U.S. government told us all that swine flu could turn out to be a killer that could spread across the nation, and Washington decided that every man, woman and child in the nation should get a shot to prevent a nation-wide outbreak, a pandemic.” (Mike Wallace, CBS, 60 Minutes, November 4, 1979)

“The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency’s massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines — thimerosal — appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children….

This article is meant to be provocative. Global Research does not necessarily share its conclusions.

***

Letter to my son

My dear Muhammad Ali:

I told you that it’s a funny world getting funnier. Many American analysts are saying that America’s real economic collapse could come by the end of this year. “It will come to be known as ‘The Crash of 09’, they say. Others, especially a Russian political analyst, are predicting its physical collapse too. There’s no doubt that the country is up the dirtiest of imaginable creeks without a paddle. But what’s amazing is that America remains mired in stunning denial, continuing to make bad situations worse with useless bailout plans and messing around with the world instead of facing up to the reality that its time as a hyper-power is up, that’s its economic system has failed and that its only recourse is to end its adversarial doctrine and get out of its lost wars as painlessly and honourably as possible. There’s no point in going on flogging dead horses. The only sensible thing that survival demands is to craft a new moral economic and financial system and a moral foreign policy.

The deep recession verging on depression that we have seen so far was caused by the crash in the US housing market. Since other developed industrialised nations, especially of Europe, were aping the shenanigans of unchecked and poorly regulated American bankers and financiers, the collapse of their markets, banks and economies followed like dominoes. Iceland was the first to officially declare bankruptcy. Its GDP is only about $6.5 billion but its banks had lent something like $65 billion while its regulators were asleep on the wheel. Britain has not declared bankruptcy officially but we all know that it is bankrupt for all intents and purposes and none of its banks and financial institutions has any legs left.

However, this is only the aperitif. Wait for the crash of US commercial real estate, which analysts think will happen by autumn this year.

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The Senate voted to save net neutrality. Now we need the House of Representatives to do the same, or else the FCC will let ISPs like Comcast and Verizon ruin the internet with throttling, censorship and unnecessary fees. Click the image below to write to Congress.

The Golden Rule

“That which is hateful to you do not do to another ... the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.” - Rabbi Hillel

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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